Cory just finished his presentation at the Emerging Technologies conference (which I didn’t go to, though would like to next time…) and gave a presentation on the state of ebooks. I’ve read both of his released novels on-screen, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom just on HTML web pages and his latest, Eastern Standard Tribe on my Samsung i330 Palm / cellphone combo. I have to say that he rocks — not only is his writing top notch and enjoyable (and reads pretty quickly as well), but his thoughts and philosophy about the current situation regarding copyright and publishing are right on in my opinion.

Which isn’t to say that old media die. Artists still
hand-illuminate books; master pianists still stride the boards at
Carnegie Hall, and the shelves burst with tell-all biographies of
musicians that are richer in detail than any liner-notes booklet.
The thing is, when all you’ve got is monks, every book takes on
the character of a monkish Bible. Once you invent the printing
press, all the books that are better-suited to movable type
migrate into that new form. What’s left behind are those items
that are best suited to the old production scheme: the plays that
*need* to be plays, the books that are especially lovely on
creamy paper stitched between covers, the music that is most
enjoyable performed live and experienced in a throng of humanity.